France: Paris Moving Forward To Limit Speeds To 30 KPH

Despite all the protests and expert advise, the Paris Mayor, the recently elected Anne Hidalgo, is pushing further the idea of limiting speeds in the French capital to 30 kph.

Citing safety and pollution, she wants most roads in the city limited to 30 kph (18.6 mph), while the bigger and more frequented roads will remain at 50 kph, like the famous Champs Elysee. Most experts agree that limiting traffic to 30 kph does not reduce pollution, it might just increase it. Cars and motorcycles stay longer with their engine on, and with the overheating, the engines will generate more pollution.

Safety is a mockery, and a buzz word often used by the government to placate its citizens, but in reality it's just a spin word for money. Changing speed limits to a lower limit brings in millions, if not billions Euros' worth of speeding fines. Just the recent lowering of the speed limit on the Parisian ring road (the famous Peripherique) from 80 to 70 kph brought in an additional 20% of speeding fines (link)

So against most advice, Paris is pushing forward to limit the speeds inside the city, while not doing anything to boost its public transportation system and reducing the strikes by metro and rail. Of course having the French rail roads (SNCF) take delivery of 2000 train wagons that were ordered 20 cm too wide is not going to solve anything. "Au contraire" as the French say, it will increase even further the price of tickets.

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